


Railroad

by eam



Series: Ben's Playlist [1]
Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 03:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9800264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eam/pseuds/eam
Summary: Being exhausted doesn't mean Ben won't stop to help someone who needs it.





	

Ben collapsed into the train seat and tried to drown in it immediately. After an eventful pre-dawn morning that involved his car breaking down and his wonderful brother having to save him from the pitch black. The train from Hertfordshire to Birmingham was twice as long as the drive, but just because he had the chance to steal a nap, doesn’t mean he magically had all the energy in the world to guest-judge the cooking competition his alma mater was holding. And now he had to settle in for the train ride back, and find out if anything had happened to the car he had had to leave on the side of the road.

It wasn’t his worst ever day, but it certainly was exhausting.

“Oh! Shoot, I am  _ so  _ sorry” Ben heard from further up the car. The harsh American accent was accompanied by a flash of long, chocolate brown hair, a giant suitcase, an oversized duffel balancing precariously on top of that, and a woman tripping over all of it and apologizing to everyone around her.

She collapsed into a seat a bit ahead and opposite to where Ben was sitting when the duffel did what it threatened to do, and tumbled to the ground. The woman just glared at it for a few seconds, but right as Ben made to help her, she yanked it off the ground. 

He watched as she checked over her things, adjusted herself for the ride, and scanned the other passengers before her eyes landed on him.

“I’m really sorry to bother you,” she said, voice rising only slightly but still not enough to draw attention from the crowds, “but this  _ is  _ the train to Hertfo-Hertfordshire?”. She pronounced it Hurt-fordshire instead of Harht-fordshire.

“Hertfordshire,” Ben enunciated, “and yes, it is.” 

The woman let out a deep exhale, broke into a grin, and thanked Ben before turning around back into her seat.

The three hour trip back was long, but unlike the morning trip He couldn’t phase in and out of a nap and instead took to people watching or looking out the window for the entire journey. As the train slowed to a stop in the home station and there was a bustling of people eager to get off the train, and he honestly didn’t think twice about the foreigner as he joined them. But as the crowds pushed and pulled in the station, he saw her again. The masses didn’t care that she had extra baggage and continued in their normal way, and her duffel was knocked to the ground again. 

Ben watched her take a deep breath and look to the sky, her eyes growing wet, and he remembered that no matter where she was coming from from the Americas, this woman has probably been travelling for at least ten hours. Her hair was coming loose out of the bun, her clothes were wrinkled, and the arms to her sweatshirt looked like they had been bunched up in frustration. 

Momentarily forgetting his own weariness, Ben manoeuvred through the crowd and grabbed it before she had a chance. 

“Can I help you out?” he offered, holding her bag in his hand. Recognition and relief flashed in her eyes.

“That would be incredible, actually. Thank you.”

He quickly shut down her arguments as he traded off her duffel for her luggage and helped guide her through the mass of people. Ben knew better than to try and force conversation over the quiet roar of the crowd, and if he noticed that if he  _ felt _ like collapsing earlier, this woman  _ looked _ like it.

“So, do you need to try and flag down a taxi?” he asked when they reached the curb.

“Oh, no,” she told him with a little wave, “my cousin  _ should  _ be coming to get me.”

“Okay, well I should be on my way” Ben said, take a step away, “but I wish you the best of luck here”

“Yeah, of course” she stuck her hand out, which he took and shook, “thank you, again for your help.”

And with a nod of the head, Ben meandered away to where his own ride was waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Are song fics even a thing still? Anyways, if you go onto Spotify and look up sortedfood each of the boys' have a playlist and Ben's is A++, I've been listening to it for a while. It also has a bunch of love songs on it that essentially wrote out the scenarios for me lol. Titles/ideas may very well just be straight up from the strong, inspired, or taken from the title alone (like this one.)


End file.
